Quick Links - Poets.org

follow poets.org

Search form

The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

“‘Blur’ is from a sequence of poems that draw on the earth sciences, each poem provoked by a landmark book or paper. The stanzas in the poems end with a word from one sentence in the related text; in ‘Blur’ the sentence is from Aristotle’s History of Animals: ‘As to the parts internal and external that all animals are furnished withal, and further as to the senses, to voice, and sleep, and the duality of sex, all these topics have now been touched upon.’ Our having entered the ‘Anthropocene’—an era in which human activity is affecting the planetary ecosystem to a greater degree than ever before—makes it urgent that the various languages we use to understand ourselves and our world be kept in contact with one another. Putting the languages of science and of poetry in contact moves us toward a healthier, more mutually beneficial ‘dialogue’ between humanity and our natural environment.”—H. L. Hix

Blur

Turns out lots of lines prove blurry I once thought sharp.
Some blur from further away, some from closer in.
Plant/animal, for instance. On which side, and why,
the sessile polyps, corals and sea anemones?
Same problem saying why my self must be internal.
Where do I see those finches glinting at the feeder?
To experience the is-ness of what is,
I’d need to locate the here-ness of what’s here.
Or be located by it. Or share location with it.
There’s a line I want to blur: between my senses
and my self. And another: between my senses
and the world. That anemone looks more like a lily
than an appaloosa. Looks, and acts. I feel that fizz
of finches sparkle on my tongue, the back of my throat.
I don’t say these words until I hear them. My voice
visits. Is visitation. I would choose the role
of visitor over visited, if I got to choose.
Those finches trill and warble in sequences of phrases.
I can tell there’s pattern, but not what the pattern is.
I can say I hear them (I do hear them) in my sleep,
but I can’t say what that means. Their twitters and chirps
start early, before I wake. I can say they chatter all day
(they do), when I’m hearing them and when I’m not,
but I can’t say how I know that. The back of my hand
always feels as if it’s just been lightly touched.

H. L. Hix

related poems

The pilot alone knows
That the plot is missing its
Eye.
Why isn't this "ominous science"
itself afraid, a frayed
Identity?
Pray, protagonist —
Prey to this series of staggered instants.
Here the optic
Paints its hole, its self-consuming moment.
It is speech, dispelled, that
begs

How shall a generation know its story
If it will know no other? When, among
The scoffers at the Institute, Pasteur
Heard one deny the cause of child-birth fever,
Indignantly he drew upon the blackboard,
For all to see, the